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Japan freezes soil to protect groundwater from Fukushima disaster

Fukushima, Japan: Japan's Industry Ministry showed the news media a site testing underground walls of frozen soil, the fully fledged version to begin construction next month to prevent groundwater from mixing with contaminated water at Tokyo Electric Power's crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The government plans to build 30-metre deep underground walls by freezing soil around the outer 1.5-kilometre perimeter of reactors No. 1 to No. 4 at the plant to keep groundwater from flowing into the reactor buildings and becoming highly contaminated.

On Friday, the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism presented to the media a 1.2-metre deep, five-square-metre hole used to monitor the frozen soil walls.

The frozen wall's temperature was 3 degrees below zero and it was too hard to be broken, even with a hammer. There was no water at the bottom of the hole because the walls block groundwater from flowing through them, according to the agency.